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by arthur_pendragon



Series: Brittle [2]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Incest, M/M, Modern Era, Reincarnation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-20
Updated: 2018-03-20
Packaged: 2019-04-05 02:43:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14034405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arthur_pendragon/pseuds/arthur_pendragon
Summary: It’s inexplicable, this longing, deep in his bones, that sings to the stars in the quiet of the night.





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**Author's Note:**

> a sequel to Crumble (a kink meme fill, please check [Kinks Of Camelot](https://kinksofcamelot.livejournal.com) on LJ out!), written because I have no self-control.
> 
> it _might_ stand alone, but a bit more clarity about Arthur might be got from reading [the first part](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13991166) :)

Guinevere is a breath of new life, the sweet warmth of sunshine, the kind of safety Arthur could lose himself in forever. They gravitated towards each other, naturally, unbidden, Arthur’s first day at university, and Arthur hasn’t been able to tear himself away from her since.

Arthur revels in her laughter and she holds him when he’s too weak to look up from the floor.

“I’d like it if _some_ day you talked to me about whatever makes you like this,” she says one such time, when Arthur’s eyes are dry from not blinking and he is a statue in her arms.

“I miss my brother,” Arthur says. “I can’t breathe for how much.”

He never mentions him by name. Thinking it is agonising enough—saying it out loud would leave him in pieces.

It’s inexplicable, this longing, deep in his bones. His nerves fire with it; his fingers clench when they reach out for air. The longing erodes him to a hollow shell, it keeps him awake at night. It’s just—Merlin. It’s just his little brother who used to steal all the lollies from the fridge and then stick out his brilliantly-coloured tongue at him, whose absence feels so very like the incomprehensible weight of a thousand years of loneliness. It’s just _Mer_ lin, and Arthur’s only a little below twenty five; it’s inexplicable, this longing, that sings to the stars in the quiet of the night.

He doesn’t go home anymore. His parents ask him to, every time they ring him up, they say _it’s been so long since we saw you, how’s your courses going, we can’t make the trip to London, don’t you have any holidays coming up_ , but Arthur never commits, because they don’t say _Merlin misses you, come back_ but they wouldn’t, would they, scared of what he’d do if they even hinted that Merlin—

“Don’t you phone him?”

He doesn’t. Arthur hasn’t talked to Merlin in a few years. Remembers with crystal clarity the red eyes and sullen pout of his mouth as they dropped Arthur off at the train station and promised to video-chat every once in a while. Remembers the brief, tight hug and Merlin’s one wrench of a sob into Arthur’s shoulder that sounded much too much like goodbye.

“I do, but it’s not the same.”

“Arthur,” Guinevere sighs, adding nothing more. There isn’t really much to say, not after more than a thousand days of the same tired problem over and over and over.

Arthur prays to whatever gods he’s supposed to believe in.

There’s a knock on the door.

 

***

  
“I had to,” Merlin says helplessly. “I had to follow you, I tried not to, I…”

None of Arthur’s muscles listen to him as he stands in the doorway, mouth half-open, gaping at Merlin.

“Arthur,” Merlin sighs, so different from Guinevere, so electrifying. There’s a hint of stubble on Merlin’s jaw and his eyelashes are thicker, longer. Still the same mouth. Still the same look in his eyes, like Arthur is the sole reason Merlin even _bothers_ to keep breathing, like one snap of Arthur’s fingers and Merlin would gladly drown. Taller, too, able to look Arthur in the eye and transfix him.

“Arthur?” Guinevere echoes from behind him. Merlin spots Guinevere and his resultant smile is blindingly sad, though Arthur’s the only one that notices.

“Gwen,” Merlin says, eyes crinkling at the corners.

“I—oh, my goodness—” Guinevere falls back in shock.

“Arthur told me about you,” Merlin lies quick and easy; for whose sake, Arthur doesn’t know. Arthur ought to be wondering, but he’s lost, floating in the ocean of galaxies in the eyes he sees every time he looks in a mirror.

“Come on in,” he croaks.

Merlin brushes past him, slow and deliberate, on the way into Arthur’s dorm room, setting Arthur’s soul on fire.

“I’m his little brother,” he tells Guinevere, who’s kindly making Merlin a cup of tea already with what rubbish teabags Arthur has in his room.

“He talks about you a _lot_ ,” Guinevere says, laughing gently, amazingly able to make light of what’s crippled Arthur all his life. Arthur, still speechless, watches Merlin blush and duck his head. “Sit on the floor or the bed if you like, I’ve been telling him for ages to sneak a chair from the storeroom but it’s like he loves to be uncomfortable.”

Merlin readily crosses his legs on the stone floor and grins up at her, as if Arthur isn’t even there anymore. Arthur numbly joins him, knee-to-knee.

“How’s Lancelot?” Merlin asks, and Guinevere gasps in a very unsurprised sort of way.

“Oh, Arthur told you about my boyfriend, too?”

Some of Merlin’s tension melts away, and Arthur hates that he catches it. “He tells me _every_ thing.”

Not one phone call in three years.

“He’s very well—but in the hospital, actually. No cause for concern, though, so don’t worry or anything. I’m supposed to see him in a few hours.”

“You should go to him,” Merlin says, getting up and taking the teacups and kettle from her, placing them back onto Arthur’s desk. “I’m here now.”

Guinevere pauses.

“Thank you, Merlin,” she says, low, and hugs him. Arthur doesn’t remember ever telling her Merlin’s name.

 

***

  
Arthur has Merlin in his mouth not a minute after the door shuts. Merlin pushes up into Arthur’s mouth with a ragged moan and somehow Arthur knows Merlin never found someone after Arthur left.

“Always you,” Merlin pants, fingers buried in Arthur’s hair, reading Arthur’s mind. “No one back home with hair golden enough.”

Arthur groans in response, not quite able to speak, busy savouring the feel of Merlin on his tongue and the legs wrapped tight around him and god, their parents had probably always known, they’d been so _obvious_ , but Arthur doesn’t care, not when he finally has Merlin’s warmth in his cold life again—

“I told myself I’d never come to find you again, _oh_ ,” Merlin keens. The weight of his hands disappears from Arthur’s head as Arthur laps at the tip of Merlin’s cock.

“Shut up, Merlin,” Arthur says, and it was either the worst or the best thing to say, for Merlin shudders and comes all over Arthur’s face.

Arthur takes a second to breathe and wipe off the come and collect himself but Merlin has him pinned underneath in no time, staring at him in an echo of Arthur’s yearning.

“You’re—” Merlin’s voice is hushed, just for the two of them in their tiny world where they could be anyone, anyone but themselves. “I can’t take it. It’s always like this. You’re always like this.”

Arthur, long having given up on any insight into the mystery of Merlin, runs his hands up Merlin’s chest and settles on his shoulders. The floor’s warmed up pleasantly beneath him and all he wants is to stay like this forever.

“I would have come back to you,” Arthur whispers. Merlin’s face crumples. “I don’t know why—you’re _it_ for me—I would have come back. All my life, since you were born, I’ve only ever been whole with you, and I don’t know why it has to be you but it is and I’m so sorry.”

Merlin bites his lip and looks away, tears catching on those beautiful eyelashes before dropping to Arthur’s cheeks.

Arthur pulls him down and holds him tight.

“I love you,” he sighs into Merlin’s neck, his heady scent overtaking him. Merlin is pliant in his grasp, kissing Arthur’s temple.

“ _Please_ ,” Arthur begs, unaware of what he’s asking of Merlin.

**Author's Note:**

> feedback/hugs/anything else except mean anons welcomed with open arms <3


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